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ANME NewsNewsletter of the

June 2012 No. 2

Box 24, Building 5, Faculty of Education, University of Canberra ACT 2601

Email: [email protected]

www.anme.org.au or www.canberra.edu.au/centres/anme

Phone: 02 62012473

Visit to Bacchus Marsh Primary School

ANME Curator, Dr Malcolm Beazley visited the historic Bacchus Marsh Primary School during his

April trip to Victoria. This school is one of the earliest government schools to be established in

Victoria (when it was still part of the colony of NSW). It was established as a National School in

1850. A more permanent brick school building was erected in 1865 and John Pascoe Fawkner is

recorded as having been present at the official opening of the school, which was originally named

Bacchus Marsh National School. The school has established a History Room containing timelines,

photographs and artefacts. More details about the history of the school can be obtained from theschools website, www.bacchusmarshps.vic.edu.au

Annual ANME Field Trip

On 24th March 2012 the ANME held its Annual Field Trip visiting two historic nineteenth century

school buildings in the Yass District and two sites of former one- teacher schools in the

Murrumbateman District. Friends of the ANME combined with Friends of the Hall School

Museum group to travel by minibus to the four locations, Brooklands/Wallaroo school site, Yass

Public School, Toual School building and Gooda Creek School site.

The Principal of the Yass Public School, Ms Jennifer Garnett, arranged a tour of her historic school

buildings, the first of which was constructed in 1877, a Gothic revival style of architecture,

designed by Mansfield, with tower, steep roofs and Gothic style windows. The group of visitors

was entertained to afternoon tea in the old original classroom of the 1877 building with its high

ceilings and wooden beams. Following the visit to Toual school, a one teacher classroom rural

school building, established in 1888 and closed in 1931 and now on the property of Mr. Helm in

the Murrumbateman District, the Field Trip group enjoyed a fine dinner in the Village of

Murrumbateman.

Visit of Canberra District School Archivists to ANME

On 26th March a meeting of the Canberra District School Archivists Group met in the ANME

Display Room with Curator Dr. Malcolm Beazley and Assistant Curator Dr. Geoff Burkhardt. This
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.anme.org.au/http://www.canberra.edu.au/centres/anmehttp://www.bacchusmarshps.vic.edu.au/http://www.bacchusmarshps.vic.edu.au/mailto:[email protected]://www.anme.org.au/http://www.canberra.edu.au/centres/anmehttp://www.bacchusmarshps.vic.edu.au/


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was the first time the group had formally visited ANME. Following their meeting the group was

given a tour of the recently opened Inspire Centre at the University of Canberra which may be the

focus of a multi-media exhibition relating to the history of schooling in Canberra, 1913-2013,

during the Centenary celebrations next year.

Visit to ANME by Heritage Expert

The ANME was pleased to assist Professor Jeff Brownrigg from the Donald Hrone Heritage Centre

when he visited us on 9 th April. Professor Brownrigg was interested in finding an example of a

School Music Schools Broadcast Program from the late 1940s or the early 1950s. We were able to

locate in our collection a couple of examples of these Australian Broadcasting Commission

booklets for the period covering Dr. Brownriggs research project.

Bush Schools of the Hall District Exhibition

Both ANMEs Curator and Assistant Curator attended the opening of the exhibition titled Bush

Schools of the Hall District at Hall School Museum on 14 th April. This excellent exhibition ofphotographs, documents, school books, school textbooks and school histories from 18 one-room,

nineteenth century small bush schools in the Hall District was opened by Ms Jill Waterhouse,

Canberra local historian and author of a number of local histories. The function was also addressed

by the ACT Minister of Education, Mr Chris Burke. The exhibition was mounted as a major event

during the Canberra and Region Heritage Festival.

Profile of a School Museum

Starting from this number of the Newsletter the ANME proposes to include in each of its

Newsletters a brief profile of an Australian School Museum which is registered on the OfficialANME Register of Australian School Museums. We are pleased to introduce the first in this series,

Alumny Creek School Museum in the Grafton District of NSW. The Newsletter editor expresses

his gratitude to Mr John Adams OAM, Curator of the Alumny Creek School Museum for

background notes supplied by him.

Alumny Creek School Museum

Alumny Creek School Museum is in the Grafton District of NSW a few kms from the city. It

consists of three weatherboard buildings a classroom building containing an annex and entry

porch, a teachers residence adjacent to the school building and the school classroom of the old1913 Jackadgery Public School building which was transported from its original location 50 kms

west of Grafton to the Alumny Creek precincts recently.

The Alumny Creek School closed in 1969 and the classroom was used as a storage depot until the

Alumny Creek Reserve Trust became involved in its restoration as a 1930s style classroom with

rows of fitted desks and classroom artefacts, writing artefacts and school memorabilia from the

school and district on display. The school opened in 1872, however the present schoolroom

building was erected in 1907 following the destruction of the original combined residence and

classroom during a storm. The complex of buildings was opened as a school museum in 1988. The

Museum has become a repository for the records of some of the other local schools that have been

closed during the twentieth century. Significantly the school museum also contains a school library

which is comprised of many school readers, childrens literature and school textbooks from early

decades of the twentieth century. The buildings are situated in most attractive and spacious


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grounds, with trees surrounding the school buildings. At the rear of the building is a lush tropical

nature reserve indicative of the types of dense vegetation which may have originally covered this

part of the Alumny Creek which is a tributary of the Clarence River. The school complex now

includes a former public recreation reserve comprising 10acres.

ANME Research Project : The First School Teachers in the Colony of New South Wales.

The ANME reports the completion of the first two stages of an ANME ongoing research project

into teachers in the Colony of NSW during its early decades. The Research Project Report titled,

The First School Teachers and Schools in Colonial New South Wales 1789-1810, identifies thirty

teachers who are known to have taught in the first schools in the colony. Biographical briefs of

each of the thirty are included in the report and it is interesting to note that of the thirty teachers

identified, eighteen were transported as convicts and five were missionaries returning to NSW from

missionary appointments in the South Pacific. The first teacher in the infant Colony was actually a

convict woman, Isabella Rosson, who arrived in the First Fleet, having been convicted of theft and

sentenced to seven years transportation.

Among the conclusions of the Research Report is the evidence that within twenty years of the

foundation of what was initially a penal colony, established without formal provision for the supply

of teachers for the children of convicts, emancipists, soldiers, civil officers and free settlers,

approximately a dozen schools were functioning across the thinly spread population of the colony

by 1810. Also, the Report notes that at least four of the first thirty teachers in the colony to 1810

were women, three of them having been transported as convicts.

A copy of the ANMEs Research Project Report is available for reference in the ANME Display

Room at the University of Canberra.

What makes a school artefact/document or school textbook collectable?

Volunteers, curators and school museum friends often worry about whether a donated item is

suitable for inclusion in their school museum. What criteria may be used to decide whether an

artefact or document warrants inclusion in the school museum collection? A simple guide to

whether school artefacts and items are historically significant is outlined in the following, which is

based upon and adapted from the now out-of-print publication, Museum Methods: A Practical

Manual for Managing Small Museums, Museums Australia, Sydney, 1994, section 2.13.

Criteria for Establishing Historical Significance

1. Association: Is the artefact, document or book associated with people, places or events related

to the school, the school district or a school event? For example a school exercise book used by one

of the schools pioneer pupils, which has his/her name, class and date inscribed on the cover of the

book. Or, a school sports trophy won by the school at a district or state competition, with the

schools name and date of event inscribed.


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2. Rarity: While some school classroom items are ubiquitous, such as inkbottles and slates, others,

common in the nineteenth century, may be rarely encountered today. An example is the genuine

pen-knife, not a pocket knife but the tool especially designed for cutting the ends of feathered

quills into nib shapes thus creating an instrument for writing. Another item now declared to be

rare is the metal two pronged tuning fork used for the teaching of singing lessons mainly in small

one teacher bush schools which were not supplied with pianos or musical instruments in thenineteenth century.

3. Aesthetic Value: Is the item attractive to look at? Or an art form in itself? Good examples are

nineteenth century school samplers which girls were encouraged to produce in their needlework

lessons. These usually contain the girls name and year of completion.

4. Context: Is the artefact one of a set or a series? How does it relate to the past pupils and school

teachers of the school or the school district? Is it consistent with the time period of the school?

For example, one would not exhibit a senior secondary school textbook in a primary school

museum classroom display. Nor should one expect to see a 1940s Gestetner school duplicatordisplayed in a nineteenth century themed classroom.

Recent Acquisitions

Among the recent acquisitions received by ANME was a batch of late nineteenth and early

twentieth century school textbooks used in the teaching of Latin at the secondary school level.These were donated by Mr Tom Campbell of Canberra. Among the dozen textbooks received from

Mr Campbell were Latin Grammars, Latin Readers and study books. It should be appreciated that

although Latin is taught in very few secondary schools today, it was a compulsory subject in the

nineteenth and early twentieth century colonial and state secondary school curricula for those

students who wished to proceed to university studies. This donation makes a valuable contribution

to the ANMEs research collection of school textbooks used in Australian schools during the

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

If you have wonderful historical items on

display or in your school presses, this

handbook will help you to care for them.

Cheryl OConnor Former CEO of the Australian College of

Educators.

Special Price: $15.00Postage and packaging $5.00


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Cheques for $20.00 payable to:

Australian National Museum of Education

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